What I Never Saw Coming

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you could be forgiven for thinking: "Todd, your last two blog posts have included a picture of your dining room table and now a picture of your mailbox. Boy, that's exciting." Said while rolling your eyes.

Just stay with me for two minutes...

I think the flowers and plants around the mailbox are beautiful. Perhaps you are impressed with me or Miranda for planting and cultivating them.

Only, we didn't.

When we moved into our house in February the house was - to put it mildly - 'landscape-challenged'. That's part of why we got a great deal. Bad, bad, really bad landscaping.

It's gonna be a multi-year reclamation project so we found some experts and began the project and some of the early results are good.

But, man, the mailbox looked like a disaster. Scrubby stuff around it, wilted and dead.

I determined one evening to get rid of it and actually opened the front door to go out and uproot everything...and then my phone rang.

I took the call and forgot the mailbox mess.

And then Spring came and the picture above happened.

There are things in our life that we never see coming because the raw materials look so unpromising.

Our failures. Our disappointments. Our mistakes. Our shortcomings.

The failures, disappointments, mistakes, and shortcomings of people important to us.

And then, one day, God does something new and totally unexpected.

Something we never saw coming.

There may be something in your life today that annoys you, hurts you, challenges you.

You may be headed out the door to uproot it, end it, close it off, burn a bridge.

Maybe you should.

But, on the other hand, maybe you should pause a second and ask God: "Are you up to something that I never saw coming?"